. . . pongee-colored girls in white dresses the sun
shone through in multiple haloes
where they lay alongside streets like sofas
reading José Martí behind potted ferns
in avenue-knolls paved with Key West grass
and long-leaved tobacco shaved and scented like bark strips.
I dreamt a UCLA campus built by descendants of conquistadores:
Churriguerra architects and new-freed import-labor,
not the mystical-realism of material-less materialism in La Habana Vieja
in the hands of UNESCO-planners, waiting wanly
at the end of a totalitarian century breeding slaves
freed into nightmare-bondage to an Ever-Glorious Future.
—Anthony Kerrigan
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Why the Death Penalty Is a Sore Point for Papal Authority
Pope Leo XIV marked World Day Against the Death Penalty, observed on October 10, with the following…
Forget Odysseus. Aeneas Is the True American Hero.
Who is our Odysseus? Or more precisely, who is the most Odyssean hero of American film? Matt…
Meet the Post-Religious Right
There have been many books written about the online right and the Trump movement, most by people…
